


The Contrast Of White On White

by lesbianophelia



Series: Like a Ghost Into The Fog [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Fluff, Gen, Headcanon, Post-Canon, Post-Mockingjay, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Pre-Epilogue Mockingjay, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 16:38:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4712933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianophelia/pseuds/lesbianophelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss starts to slip in the winter and needs something to focus on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Contrast Of White On White

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenWool](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenWool/gifts).



> I made a tumblr post about this headcanon last week :)

The box arrived from district eight just a couple of days after Katniss's first appointment with her new therapist. Where Doctor Aurelius would let Katniss sit mostly in silence for the full hour, the new doctor from district Eleven was a no-nonsense woman who got right to business as soon as Katniss answered the phone. Introduced herself and then announced that, judging by the records that Aurelius transferred, winter is always a bad time for her.   
  
When Katniss signed the paperwork that allowed the doctors to talk about her case, she honestly didn’t expect that the man had written anything down. He’s never pressed her to share any details, and she’s mostly gotten away with answering the bare minimum amount of questions. She has a strong suspicion that everything that was written down about her was made up off of the top of the doctor’s head when the transfer went through.   
  
She wasn’t the one who wanted a new therapist. She was plenty fine with the old one, but more and more head doctors have cropped up in the years since the war, and it’s apparently something of a conflict of interest for the same doctor to treat her and . . . well, though he didn’t mention it, she thinks probably the rest of the surviving victors and soldiers. So when it came down to it, she agreed to talk to someone new.   
  
One of the things Aurelius pulled out of his hat was right, though. Or, at least, right enough to make Katniss pause when the new doctor brought it up.

“I want to find something that will help you make it through these next few months. Busywork. What if I sent you a box?” she had asked.

Katniss hadn’t opened it right away. Hadn’t expected to open it at all, but by the time she had started her second session with the soft spoken woman on the phone, she realized that she meant business -- and that Katniss wouldn’t get away with ignoring the crate that still sat vaguely near the front door, shoved out of the way enough to allow her to get in and out, even though apparently the woods “aren’t doing her any good.”    
  
So, at the doctor’s insistence, she unpacked it with the phone cradled between her ear and her neck. There was a book -- something that the doctor mentioned there were more of, if they were something Katniss ended up liking -- fiction, the woman called it. According to the back cover, it was about a pair of lovers. An old book, from before the Dark Days. Someone turned it in to some office in the Capitol, so that it could be reproduced.  
  
Katniss wasn’t thrilled by the implication of sitting around reading a _romance_ , and the doctor laughingly explained that there are a few others to read from, but that this one seemed like it would be _safe_ for Katniss to read.   
  
Katniss didn’t know exactly what safe meant, but she had agreed to give it a chance. And she did, really. Curled up on the couch under a blanket, her sister’s stupid cat curled up in her lap. (Hers, technically. Buttercup is hers, now. Suddenly, she has a cat.)   
  
She tried to read it, one hand holding the book and the other on the head that kept pressing itself against her chest when she was still for too long. Only, something about the boy reminded her of Finnick, and she found herself with a hollow ache somewhere in the pit of her stomach. When Buttercup got tired of being second to the book, he climbed between her chest and the pages, sitting down on top of it and looking at her quizzically. It was like he thought that something was wrong.   
  
“Hey,” she said weakly, scratching behind his ear lightly. “I’m all right.”   
  
This elicited a purr, and she ignored the book for the rest of the day.

A few days later, when an attempted trip to the woods landed her with a sprained ankle and a bruised ego, she dug back into the box. There were a few other things that the doctor suggested. Drawing was one of them, but Katniss had no interest in that, and though she wanted to be as little like her mother as possible, she found herself drawn to the slender knitting needles and the soft blue yarn that was in the bottom of the box.   
  
When Sae came by the next day, Katniss held up the yarn. “Do you know how?” she asked.   
  
Sae did know. Of course Sae knew. Most mothers passed this particular skill down to their daughters in the Seam, so it was nothing new for the woman to teach Katniss how to hold the knitting needles.   
  
The yarn, apparently, was high-end. Nothing anyone from the Seam could ever have afforded. But it still took more than a few attempts for Sae to explain what she had to do. By the time Sae was nearly finished making (an admittedly late) breakfast, Katniss had finished a somewhat lopsided square that Sae taught her to finish off and used to pull the pan from the stove with a wink.   
  
Katniss was stunned by the pride that she felt.

**  
**  


Little knitted squares slowly filled the kitchen as she learned how to do them by herself. An entire drawer was loaded with them, and she found three nails in the wall a few days later, proudly displaying the three that she had managed to attach loops to for this very reason.   
  
That’s why the baker got the first scarf she made, too thin and very imperfect, but made of soft blue yarn earned a place of pride around the baker's neck the day she shoved it towards him — and every day afterwards, until winter melted into the spring and he couldn't make it through his bread delivery route without slipping the scarf into his pocket.

But during that winter, as she tried to adjust to a life where she didn't have to go into the woods when it was snowing too heavily, she nearly always had a pair of needles in her hands and her stupid cat on her lap.

“You knit me a damn scarf, Everdeen?” her friend asked by way of greeting, but Katniss knew that it was exasperation rather than anger in her voice. She had mentioned in passing that it was cold and clearly didn't expect Katniss to do anything about it.

“I did,” Katniss returns.

“We were taking bets, you know, on what you do all day. But hell if _knitting_ crossed my mind.”

She huffed out a laugh. “You're welcome, Johanna,” she said, and then added, “what color should I make for Annie?”   
  
  
For New Year’s, her mentor got a scarf of his own. He had laughed, at first. Asked if “sweetheart picked up a new hobby” when he saw the baker’s scarf. But then Katniss insisted that it was “too damn cold outside” for him to go out without one, and though she didn’t have a response to, “And when, exactly, do you see me going outside these days?” he did loop the scarf around his neck and sort of laugh, asking when he would get a hat.   
  
  
Though the summer was approaching, the baker sat dutifully in place while she and Sae tried to figure out what size to start off with for a hat. There were books that the therapist offered to send -- with directions and patterns -- but Katniss didn’t want them.   
  
 Scarves were still her favorite. She made one or two entirely too long, just by losing track of time while she knitted, but no one dared to complain about the length. But she had to admit, there was something very satisfying about seeing something other than a straight line take form in her hands.   
  
As always, the baker got the first hat. He was as pleased as every by the gift, even if he wouldn’t be able to admit it for another few months, and wore it around the house that first day. Katniss pretended like she minded, but she didn’t. She never minded it when he wore the things that she made.

  
  
The first blanket was for her friend’s baby. He was quickly approaching a birthday, and Katniss had already shipped everything that she knew how to make off towards District Four over the past few years. Five years old was a bit old, for a baby blanket, but Katniss made sure that it was big enough before she packed it in a box along with a few treats from the baker.   
  
 The second blanket, one slightly larger than the first but still not big enough to stretch across her bed -- was for her. It stayed on her chair, usually occupied by the cat. She didn’t realize until the baker mentioned it that it was the first thing that she managed to keep for herself.   
  
“Are you still knitting?” the therapist asked. “Does it help?”   
  
“Yes,” Katniss returned.

 


End file.
